The Parental Leave Problem Healthcare Can't Ignore | Michelle Yu of Josie

What happens to working healthcare parents — and their careers — before, during, and after parental leave? It's a question Michelle Yu couldn't stop asking, even after more than a decade at the top of healthcare consulting.In this episode of No Operating Manual, host Erin O'Brien sits down with Michelle Yu, co-founder and CEO of Josie, a company that partners with organizations to support working parents through parental leave coaching and return-to-work transitions. Named after Michelle's daughter, Josie was born out of Michelle's own raw and honest reckoning with what it meant to return to the road — pumping breast milk in airport bathrooms, feeling resentful, watching talented colleagues quietly exit careers they'd spent years building.Michelle and Erin discuss the real cost of treating parental leave as a logistical formality rather than a strategic imperative. They explore why the healthcare industry, which sets the clinical standards for parental leave, so often fails its own employees, and what the difference looks like between a lactation room stocked with snacks and a hospital OB-GYN pumping in a bathroom between patients.They also get into the founder journey itself: the pivot from polished consultant to vulnerable storyteller, the slow build of confidence that no pitch deck can fast-track, and why Michelle believes the best founders are the ones building something they can't imagine not doing.In this episode:The parental leave data that should alarm every HR leaderHow Josie's B2B model evolved through listening to customersWhy clinical settings lag behind corporate in supporting new parentsThe guilt, the joy, and the identity shift of returning to workWhat it means to lead with lived experience as your credibilitySources:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37096124/https://www.aamc.org/news/why-women-leave-medicinehttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6889631/https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelletravis/2025/11/12/which-large-us-companies-scored-best-on-paid-parental-leave-in-2025/